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Ancient Rome

Fifteen amphorae were found inside the Blue Room.

New Research

The Brilliant Blue Paint Covering This Lavish Room in Ancient Pompeii May Have Cost More Than Half the Annual Salary of a Roman Foot Soldier

Researchers have estimated how much the home’s owners may have paid to paint the small sacrarium, calculating the price of the Egyptian blue pigment and the hours of labor required to prepare it

One of the plaster casts on display in the new exhibition

Haunting Casts Preserving Pompeii Victims’ Final Moments 2,000 Years Ago Go on Display in a Solemn New Exhibition

Since 1863, archaeologists have made more than 100 plaster casts, which show how victims died after Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E. A new exhibition displays 22 of the best-preserved examples

The Roman stone pictured with pieces that were not found with the artifact.

New Research

This Ancient Roman Game Board Was a Mystery. Researchers Used A.I. to Figure Out How to Play

The limestone oval is carved with a dark, thin rectangle on which ancient people repeatedly moved game pieces

Researchers think some of the footprints were made by barefoot humans roughly 2,000 years ago.

Cool Finds

A Couple Walking Their Dogs Noticed 2,000-Year-Old Footprints on the Beach. They Were Visible for Just Days Before Waves Erased Them Forever

Archaeologists raced to document the semi-fossilized tracks in eastern Scotland. They were likely made by humans, deer and other animals during the late Iron Age

Pope Alexander VII commissioned the elephant sculpture to support an ancient Egyptian obelisk.

This Famous 17th-Century Elephant Sculpture in Rome Keeps Losing the Tip of Its Tusk

Designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the statue holds an 18-foot-tall Egyptian obelisk on its back. The four-inch fragment of its tusk was found nearby

Three large screens in the Rijksmuseum's "Metamorphoses" exhibition depict artist Juul Kraijer as Medusa.

See How Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ Inspired Centuries of Artists—From Caravaggio to René Magritte

A show at the Rijksmuseum brings together paintings, sculptures, film and other artworks that reinterpret the ancient Roman poet’s tales of transformation

A painting by Henri-Paul Motte depicts Carthaginians using elephants during the Battle of Zama in North Africa, which Rome won, ending the Second Punic War.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Unearthed a 2,200-Year-Old Bone. They Say It Could Be the First Direct Evidence of Hannibal’s Legendary War Elephants

The Carthaginian general famously used elephants during the Punic Wars. But until now, archaeologists had never found skeletal remains linking the animals to the conflict

New research is providing unique insights into the love notes, drawings, jokes and political commentary scratched into the ancient city's walls.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Say They’ve Identified Traces of a 2,000-Year-Old Love Note Still Etched Into a Wall in Ancient Pompeii

Advanced imaging technology has revealed 79 new pieces of graffiti on a wall in the city’s theater district. Until now, these inscriptions had been too faint for the human eye to see

Italian officials gather at the site of the basilica in the town of Fano.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Say They’ve Finally Found a Long-Lost Basilica That Matches the Description the Architect Wrote 2,000 Years Ago

The structure is the first known evidence of a building attributed to Vitruvius, the author of an architectural treatise that influenced thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci

The foundations of the buried villa captured by ground-penetrating radar

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Say They’ve Detected the Largest Stand-Alone Ancient Roman Villa Ever Unearthed in Wales

The mansion’s foundations and floors are likely well-preserved, according to geophysical surveys. The discovery provides new insights into the Roman occupation in the region

Just a few of the hundreds of bar-shaped whetstones found on the north shore

Cool Finds

Hundreds of Ancient Roman Blade Sharpeners Emerge From a Riverbank in England, Revealing the Ruins of a 2,000-Year-Old Whetstone Factory

Archaeologists think the newly discovered artifacts remained at the production site because they were deemed unusable. Large numbers of completed whetstones may have supplied other parts of the Roman Empire

Tour guides will livestream walk-throughs of the underground space, adorned with mosaic floors and colorful wall frescoes.

New Livestream Tour Takes Tourists Underneath Rome Into Never-Before-Seen ‘House of Griffins’

Beginning in March, visitors can virtually explore the 2,000-year-old subterranean dwelling, open to the public for the first time

A third-century B.C.E. Greek gold chain necklace similar to some of the missing objects

The British Museum Plans to Hire a Treasure Hunter. Duties Include Recovering Missing Artifacts Before They’re Lost to History

The museum announced in 2023 that 1,500 items were missing. More than 600 have since been found, and officials are now hoping to expand the recovery effort

A vision of ancient Carthage, attributed to the painter William Linton, c. 1830. 

The Story of Carthage Isn’t Necessarily What the Romans Committed to History

A new book by historian and archaeologist Eve MacDonald paints a more complete portrait of the once-great African society destroyed by Rome

Built between 180 and 193 C.E., the column depicts the battles of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, with more than 2,000 highly detailed figures spiraling around the shaft.

Archaeologists Are Using Lasers to Clean Decades of Grime Off a Towering 1,800-Year-Old Marble Column in Rome

Standing 154 feet tall, the column of Marcus Aurelius is located in the Piazza Colonna and intricately decorated with gruesome scenes of warfare

Fascinating finds unveiled in 2025 ranged from an Auguste Rodin sculpture to a ring bearing the likeness of the goddess Venus Victrix.

Cool Finds

Seventy-Two Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2025, From a Luxury Spa in Pompeii to a Pair of World War I Messages in a Bottle

The year’s most exciting discoveries included the site where a young George Washington stopped a friendly fire incident, the missing torso of a Buddha statue and a hidden Picasso painting

An ogham stone in Cornwall, England

These Linguists Are Creating a New Dictionary of Ancient Celtic Languages—With Help From ‘Curse Tablets’ and Roman Records

The project aims to produce a record of the Celtic languages spoken in Britain and Ireland, though the majority of these words have already been lost to history

Ancient ruins displayed at Colosseo-Fori Imperiali, a new subway station near the Colosseum in Rome

You Can Now See 2,000-Year-Old Thermal Baths and Military Barracks Without Ever Leaving Rome’s New Subway Stations

Two recently opened stops by the Colosseum double as museums, showcasing the ancient artifacts and ruins unearthed during their construction

Llorenç Alapont, an archaeologist at the University of Valencia, led the recent research on plaster casts of Pompeii victims. 

New Research

If Mount Vesuvius Erupted in August, Why Were Pompeii Victims Wearing Heavy Wool Garments?

New research finds that at least four individuals who died in the eruption were wearing woolen tunics and cloaks, which raises questions about the presumed date of the famous catastrophe

Graffiti scribbled on a wall in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii

Pompeii’s Graffiti Captures Every Joke, Boast and Argument of an Ancient Roman City Frozen in Time

The roughly 11,000 inscriptions preserved by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E. offer a glimpse into everyday life in the Roman Empire

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